


Greyscale

by this_amaranthine_heart



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (and I hope it can help someone else), (basically this is the fic that I needed), (but it didn't exist then), (months ago when I was at a low point), (so now I've written it and it does exist), ADRIEN WILL FIND LOVE AND SUPPORT, AND SOMEONE WHO WILL ACCEPT HIM FOR HIM, Adrien is ace and this is basically a character study, Asexual Character, Asexuality, BUT THE FIC DOES HAVE A HAPPY ENDING, F/M, Internalized Acephobia, miraculace, so yeah be aware of that and tread carefully, there's a lot of internalized acephobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_amaranthine_heart/pseuds/this_amaranthine_heart
Summary: Adrien Agreste is ace.  Sometimes he does a better job of living with that than at other times.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Tw: internalized acephobia.
> 
> This fic is first and foremost for ace-spectrum people, but be aware that it does in places contain internalized acephobia and this could be potentially upsetting. The ending, however, is one of hope.

Adrien often thought, idly and wryly, that his ring was the wrong color.

There was a grim sort of rightness to it, of course.  He had always known, since the first time he donned the black mask, that Chat Noir was the real him, the one hiding buried deep underneath all the layers of smiles and silent concessions.  Adrien Agreste had always felt like a lie; he was the real mask, crafted over years of hard work to keep everyone happy and safe.

And after all, it was _Adrien Agreste_ who had been plastered across billboards for years, who received an alarming number of love letters from besotted teenagers, who—despite his young age—occasionally received disturbing messages from grown adults about what they thought of his body and what they would do to it, given the chance.

Chat Noir was the one who never got publicly sexualized on TV, in advertisement—the one who didn’t all too often feel like only a body made palatable for public consumption.  Chat Noir was safe to only ever be himself—because even then, the public loved him back. That same public who was only waiting for a chance to tear Adrien Agreste down.

Chat Noir was the truth hiding behind all the lies, the one who was allowed to embrace his reality.

(So really, it was only fitting that it was Chat Noir, and not Adrien, who got to keep the black ring.)

 

 

Adrien had discovered the term ‘asexual’ six months before, during a distraught Internet search when he had been at one of his lowest points.

It had been triggered by a dozen different comments from the workers at a runway show that evening—most of them off-hand, but death from a thousand cuts will still kill. 

It was in all the well-meant questions of how he was doing, and why didn’t a handsome boy like him have a _special someone_ yet?  It was in the way that the other boys had made disgusting comments backstage, lewdly discussing both some of the female models and their own past ‘exploits’.  It was in how one of the teenage girls had walked up to him after the show and batted her eyelashes, mentioning that he had an open invitation to drop by her house ‘any time her parents weren’t home’.

It was the way that they all seemed to implicitly understand and embrace a world that Adrien didn’t belong to.

A dozen Google searches into “what if I don’t want sex” and “at what age do boys develop a libido” and “shit but what is wrong with me I think something is wrong with me”, he had come across a website that talked about ‘asexuality’.  And although Adrien had never heard the word before, the more that he read the more that the word seemed to wrap itself around him, settling into his skin and warming him down to his toes.

Asexual.

He hasn’t broken.  There was nothing wrong with him; there were others just like him.  _He was okay_.

 

 

(But knowing that he was okay and understanding it, as it turned out, were two entirely different things.)

 

 

It wasn’t enough, just to have this label for himself that he kept secret, not when the world was always seeking to label him too.  There were still too many days when he felt broken, as though his orientation kept him apart from the ‘right’ world.  Days when he thought that he was lying to himself about his orientation, days when he was convinced that no one could ever really want the real him. 

People had always loved the image of Adrien Agreste, but Adrien Agreste was a façade—an ideal that sold magazines by the thousands.  Adrien Agreste was desirable, a marketable product—he felt at times as though even his name sounded too much like a brand.  The problem was that he’d never wanted to deliver on all the implicit promises that his photo spreads apparently held.  And now, his sex appeal felt like one more lie masking the unforgivable reality. 

 

 

It wasn’t fair of him, surely, to cringe every time that Nino mentioned sex.  Adrien hated himself for it, was convinced that he simply wasn’t being a good enough friend, wasn’t being _strong enough_ to endure such talk.  Nino was allowed to enjoy sex, after all—and he was the best friend that Adrien had ever had, before Plagg and Ladybug.  Adrien could do this.  And it shouldn’t have been a big deal anyways, and he didn’t want to make a fuss.  He couldn’t just protest every time that sex was mentioned, regardless of how much it bothered him. 

Regardless of how uncomfortable or insecure he was made by such talk. 

Adrien owed Nino so much, would have done anything for him, and surely he could do this too—except that the words were crawling up his skin and into his mouth, choking him, and he wanted it to stop he wanted it to stop _he wanted it to stop_.

But he had too much practice in keeping silent and nodding along, and he bore the burden.

He couldn’t let Nino think that he was weird.

He couldn’t lose Nino.

And he knew, in the back of his mind, that telling Nino would surely turn out alright.  Nino would probably be confused, but he would surely be supportive, and he would do his best to make Adrien comfortable.

And yet the words stuck in Adrien’s throat, refusing to leave whenever he tried to summon them.  Because there was always still that sliver of doubt—that what-if.  What if Nino didn’t believe him.  What if Nino laughed.  What if Nino decided that he didn’t want to be friends with a freak like Adrien.

So Adrien kept his mouth shut, and nodded along, and merely did his best to steer the conversation away from himself, every time bleeding a little bit more on the inside.

 

 

The word was “sex-repulsed”, and Adrien loved it.  Loved it for making him valid, making him real, making his discomfort something that wasn’t his fault.

(The word was “sex-repulsed”, and Adrien hated it.  Because if it was real, then that meant that this was something that he couldn’t change, and that meant that he was destined to always struggle in a world that held sex too dear.  He would spend an entire lifetime feeling wrong every time he passed an advertisement or watched a movie or heard a snippet of frank conversation on the bus.

He wasn’t sure how he would ever be strong enough to handle that.)

 

 

It wasn’t always distressing to think about his orientation, of course.  There were a lot of people on the websites and forums that he had found, people who were like him and who made him feel less alone.  Reading their posts helped him learn more about this new community that he had become a part of, helped him to understand himself so much more, and made him feel at home.  He had messaged a couple of them, hesitantly asked a few questions, and they had all been incredibly kind and supportive.  And over and over again, they had told him, “You are okay.  You are valid.  I promise you, you are okay.”

And there were moments, days even, when he believed that.  When he held his head high and wanted to declare, unabashedly, “I am ace!   That is who I am!  And it is okay!”

But it was hard, when all of those people were only screen-names who he had never met in person.

It was hard, when the reality was that he couldn’t tell his father for fear of the surely negative reaction.

It was hard to love his asexuality when society was trying so hard to make him despise it.

 

 

…truthfully, he never meant to come out to Ladybug.

(In fact, other than perhaps his father, she was the last person that he had wanted to tell, for it was their reactions that he feared the most.  They were the ones with the most power to break his heart.)

But that didn’t keep the truth from spilling out one cold November evening in bitter, broken sentences.

 

 

Ladybug was endlessly beautiful; she was summer skies and a smile brighter than every light on the Eiffel Tower.  And Adrien knew intrinsically, just as he always had, that he didn’t deserve her.  He had known from their first meeting that she was better than him in every way.  It wasn’t ever a fact that had intimidated him; rather, it had only inspired awe and reverence.  Ladybug was incredible, and he tripped over his feet—at times literally—at every possible chance to try to impress her, but he found it hard to believe in the back of his mind that impressing her was even possible.  He was so little underneath the mask; he was a fraud.  He would never be enough for her (well actually, he couldn’t imagine that _anyone_ could ever be worthy of her.  But if such a person existed, it certainly wasn’t Adrien Agreste). 

Ladybug was the very soul of Paris, and she deserved every last romantic movie and song that had been inspired by the world’s most beautiful and love-struck city.

And maybe Adrien had always known, awkward words on his tongue and social discomfort embedded in his bones, that he was no romantic hero.  But it had never struck him as brutally as it did in that moment that he could never be the fairy tale prince that someone else had grown up dreaming about.  For all that he could try to give and give and give, he would never be able to give sex or even the promise of it.  It was an insurmountable and immovable blockade standing between him and any long-term romantic relationship.  He could never be enough to satisfy what someone else truly wished for in a relationship. 

And if he loved anything in the world, then heavens knew he loved Ladybug—but even if by some miracle she could entertain feelings for him in return, and even if she then promised that she did not need to sleep with him to feel complete, Adrien knew that she would be lying.  Adrien lacked so many of the qualities of a desirable partner, but this one was a looming trump card that would never—could never—change.  Adrien Agreste had too much love in his heart and that would never matter a whit.

 

 

It wasn’t a night all that much different from any other patrol night, really, when Chat Noir came out to Ladybug.  It was a cold November evening, with a half-moon caught on Notre Dame’s spire and a few stray clouds playing hide-and-seek with the stars.  Chat Noir and Ladybug stood perched above the Eiffel Tower, their patrol finished but both content to rest quietly for a few minutes in each other’s presence before they returned to their other lives.

“Isn’t it a beautiful sight, kitty?”

Ladybug’s voice broke the silence, her eyes trained on the horizon and a soft smile dancing across her lips.

“It is, my lady.  Beautiful like yourself.”

The words left his mouth instinctively, but without any heart.  Though they were still colored with sincerity, he couldn’t bring himself to commit to the flirt as he would have on another night.  Because she _was_ beautiful—standing there framed against a Parisian skyline, her outline glowing incandescently—but he couldn’t help but think just how similar a sight her beauty and that of the city were for him.

Ladybug was beautiful, and he loved her.  But it only meant that he wanted to hold her hand, wrap an arm around her waist, and cuddle into the warmth that she exuded.  She was the City of Light personified, and he wanted to forever be allowed to love her, and one day be loved in return.  He loved her—he _did_ —but fuck it if he didn’t feel as though somehow his love meant less when he didn’t want her body. Although she was the realest thing in his world and held his heart like no one else ever had, her beauty didn’t inspire the kind of desire that he was supposed to feel.  His romantic feelings held true, but that didn’t mean that he could give her enough.  That didn’t mean that he wasn’t still gloriously insecure about whether his love was really ‘real’ when it only came in certain shades of purple and greyscale.

(So yes.  Ladybug was beautiful like the city, but maybe that comparison hit just a little too close to home.)

“Are you alright, Chat?”  Ladybug’s voice pierced through his thoughts, her brow furrowed as she turned towards him.  “You sound a little down.”

“I’m fine, my lady!”  Adrien winced internally at the sound of his own voice, too bright and loud coming out of a mouth surely smiling too wide.

Ladybug eyed him for a moment, eyes keen as she took in his expression and posture.  “Are you sure?”  She hesitated for a moment before adding softly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine, bugaboo, really.”

Ladybug nodded uncertainly.  They stood there for a minute, shoulder to shoulder, both looking out at their city, before she tentatively lowered her head onto his shoulder and interlaced their fingers.  At the contact, something inside Adrien broke.

“I am never going to have sex with anyone.”

The words were out of his mouth before he’d fully registered them.

Ladybug sputtered, her hand spasming suddenly in his as her head shot up.  “I don’t… I… is that supposed to be some sort of… _sick pick-up line_?”

“No!” Adrien felt his face flood with color as the words played back through his mind and he frantically turned to reassure his lady.  “No, I swear!  I—it wasn’t—” His words broke off as a look of revulsion crossed his face.  “That wasn’t how I meant it at all.”  Raising his eyes sheepishly to Ladybug, he added quietly, “I’m sorry.”

She glared at him suspiciously for a moment.  “If you say so.”

“It’s just that…” He stopped for a moment, gathering his courage, and then nodded.  He could do this.  He could come out to her.  Turning away from her, Adrien choked out the words, “Have you ever heard of asexuality?”

In the moment’s silence that followed, he couldn’t bring himself to look at Ladybug and face her reaction.  He pulled his hand abruptly out of hers and found himself beginning to pace.

“I’ve always felt… I mean… For the longest time, people always seemed so focused on sex and so excited about it and it was the only thing that they ever talked about.  And I didn’t _get it_.  I didn’t—” Adrien winced as he heard his voice crack.  “I _still_ don’t get it.  And I always thought that was weird and wrong, that _I_ was weird and wrong, or there were other times that I thought that people were just making it up, because… because how could people really be that focused on sex?  They had to be faking.  And so I faked too, sometimes, because—” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, “—Because I wanted so badly to belong.”

Adrien bit his lip and turned to face the skyline, the wind cutting through him.

“But no matter how much I pretended, the truth was that I was still different and it _hurt_ , it hurt to think that I was messed up and I didn’t even know why and… and then I found about asexuality.”  He became conscious in that moment that he was anxiously twisting his ring back and forth.  He didn’t even know how long he’d been doing so.  “And I found out—I found out that I’m not alone, that there are others who feel like me too.  And it’s a sexual orientation, just like being gay or straight is.  Some people just don’t experience sexual attraction, and that’s who they are and it’s real and I’m one of those people.”

Adrien chanced a look at Ladybug then, for a split second, but he couldn’t read any thoughts on her face, other than that she was listening intently.  But he was too far in now, and so he plunged ahead.

“And it’s like… it’s like at first I was so relieved, because I finally knew that I wasn’t making it up or messed up or anything.  But then… now there are times when I just feel even worse?  Because there are some asexual people who still have sex, but I _know_ that I’m not one of them and I can’t ever _be_ one of them.  I just can’t.  Sex sounds—it sounds disgusting and wrong and awful and _I don’t want it_.  I hate it when people even mention it.  But the thing is, I still really, really like people.  Romantically, I mean.  And before I knew about asexuality, I didn’t know that those could be different; that there were different ways of liking people.  I just thought that everyone must feel like me… but they don’t.  Other people feel _more_.  And it makes me feel _sick_ because I really, really want to go on dates and hold hands and… and all of that dumb corny stuff.  I want it; I do.  But now that I know I’m ace, I’ve realized that… I can’t have that.  People don’t just have that without having sex.  No one else, none of the non-ace people, want a relationship without sex.  Which means that I can’t be enough for anyone and I still don’t belong, even though I’ve tried so hard, and it’s so stupid but I just feel so _lonely_ —”

Adrien’s voice had been rising throughout the outburst, and now it broke off as he choked on a sob.  Numbly, he was aware that his eyes were stinging with tears, but it didn’t feel like it mattered.  And _shit_ , but he was going to be so alone for his whole life.  He had always been alone since his mother’s death and he just wanted a change, but it didn’t matter, because he would always, always be alone—

Then he felt arms slip around his waist; first tentatively, and then more surely in a fierce hug.  He glanced down in shock to discover Ladybug’s head tucked against his shoulder.

“You’re not alone, kitten.  Chat.  Listen to me.  I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”  She was silent for a moment, and then added quietly, “And I know that you will find the person for you.  They’re out there somewhere right now.  And they will love you so much, because you _are_ so much—you have so much love and energy and goodness to give.  And it’s not going to matter whether or not you have sex with them, because just you yourself will be more than enough.  And I know that they will feel impossibly blessed.”

Adrien thought about her words for a moment, trying to make sense of them—trying to believe them.  And then, despite of himself, he grinned. 

“…My lady, did you just say that my partner would be _impawsibly_ blessed?”

Ladybug groaned and shook her head slightly in disbelief, but she remained where she was, arms around Adrien’s waist. 

More somberly, Adrien whispered, “Thank you, Ladybug.  Thank you so, so much.”

And then he quietly turned over her words in his head, over and over again, trying them out: _I am, just me, more than enough._

After a few moments, Adrien glanced down at his gloved hands, flexing the claws and eying the black ring that adorned one finger—that black ring that meant so much in his mind’s eye, proclaiming and containing his identity in so many more ways than one.

Perhaps he could ask Plagg about changing the color of the ring permanently, so that it appeared the same even when he was Adrien.  Maybe he really could wear a black ring all the time.

Maybe he didn’t need to be ashamed.

He had spent so long worried and hating himself, and that wouldn’t fade in the space of a night.  But his lady’s promise and support meant more even than he could have guessed.  And maybe her love for him remained platonic, but she loved him nonetheless—loved him although he was asexual and therefore different.

(He would be lying if he said that didn’t make him love her even more.)

He had spent so much of his time masked, yet he had never before felt so clearly seen—and she had accepted him even so.

And if his lady could accept him, then maybe Adrien could also learn to accept himself.

 

 

Adrien Agreste was many things: model, pun-lover, part-time hero.  And he was also asexual. 

And frankly, that was just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. 
> 
> For clarification, sex-repulsion and asexuality do not necessarily go hand-in-hand; they can both exist independently of the other. Also, that whole bit about Ladybug being like Paris was my clumsy attempt at capturing the idea of aesthetic attraction, something that Adrien does not know the words for. If you think that I misrepresented it, tell me and I'm willing to remove it from the fic. Additionally, this fic references ace rings. They are a symbol of identification worn by some (but not all) people who identify on the asexual-spectrum. They are normally black and worn on the right middle finger. Adrien's Miraculous is a silver ring when he is Adrien, and black when he is Chat Noir. Thus, it appears very similar to an ace ring when he is transformed, but not when he is de-transformed.
> 
> Finally and most importantly, any internalized acephobia does NOT represent my ideas or the truth in any way; if some of Adrien's self-hatred and doubts sound like your own, know that you are valid and you are real and you are worth so so much. The cruel voices in your head are wrong.
> 
> If you wish, you can also find me on tumblr as this-amaranthine-heart (dashes, not underscores). Comments / feedback is deeply appreciated. And if you need to talk about your own struggle with identity, particularly with the ace-spectrum, I am free to listen.


End file.
